CHEVRON CONVEYOR BELT

A chevron conveyor belt is a profiled belt whose carrying surface is decorated with raised V-shaped (or sometimes U- and Y-shaped) rubber cleats vulcanized onto an otherwise standard fabric or steel cord carcass. The chevron pattern grips the material — sand, gravel, grain, crushed stone, biomass — and prevents it from sliding back down a steep incline. This extends the usable conveying angle well beyond the rule-of-thumb 18–22° limit of a smooth-cover belt; well-designed chevron systems carry dry material up to 30° and damp/sticky material up to about 35–40°.

Profile height typically ranges from 5 mm for fine material on light belts to 32 mm for coarse aggregate on heavy belts. Pitch (the longitudinal spacing between chevrons) and the chevron angle (commonly 30° or 45° to the belt centreline) influence both carrying capacity and self-cleaning behaviour. Open-V profiles release material at the head pulley cleanly; closed-V or full-pattern designs maximize anti-rollback but may need a beater or rotating brush for hard-to-release material.

Designers must remember that the underside of a chevron belt is smooth, so it runs over normal carrying idlers and a normal drive pulley — the engineering of the drive, take-up and trough remains the same as a flat belt. Capacity calculation, however, must derate for the cross-section occupied by the chevrons themselves, and impact rating at the loading chute must consider that the chevron profiles concentrate point loads on the cushion idlers below.